Ensuring food security

Food security (food self-sufficient). Food Security' is achieved when it is ensured that -all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.The food security strategy has two major approaches toward achieving food security in Ethiopia.

1. Enhancing agricultural productivity: agriculture is considered to be the starting point for initiating the structural transformation of the economy. Because of this, agricultural development -led industrialisation as a major policy framework since 1991. Assisting the development of agriculture and helps expand the market for domestic production result in increased incomes for smallholders.
2. Asset building and productive safety net programs (PSNP): it aims to build the asset of the poorest of the poor to enable them to develop means of living (livelihood). Therefore, the food security strategy places a significant focus on the following issues in Ethiopia.
   1. Controlling population growth: high population growth rate continues Ethiopian ability to be food secure and provide adequate education, health and other essentials social and economic services. The central element of the policy focuses on a multi-sectorial approach improving family planning services and expanding education.
   2. Preventions and control of HIV/ AIDS: are the formidable challenge to the pursuit of food security in Ethiopia as it reduces and debilities the productive population and society as a whole. The government has put in place a national policy and countrywide program for the entire community to control and reduce the spread of the disease.
   3. Gender: women have a productive role in the rural community including participation in the livestock maintenance and management, crop production and marketing of agricultural products. Integration of gender perspectives in the design and implementation of economic and social policies programs and projects are considered as a central to the national food security strategy.
   4. Environmental sustainability: This is crucial to the pursuit of food security and economic development. Development depends on the appropriate and sustainable management of natural resource. Given the high environmental degradation in a drought area and pastoral area, environmental rehabilitation (soil and water conservation) is an essential element.
   5. Water project: water harvesting and the introductions of high - value crops livestock and agroforestry development.
   6. Environmental rehabilitation: measures to reverse the level of land degradation and create a source of income generation for food insecure household through a focus on biological measures, such as reforestation and land preservation.

Food security is only achieved when some access to food is together with environmental sanitation, adequate health care, the knowledge and attention need to ensure the good health of all individual at a household level.

Household Food Security

To say the households are food secured all the family members have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food at all the time and fulfil their dietary needs for their healthy life. This includes three core concepts of food security: availability or physical supply; access the ability to acquire the food and utilisation (the capacity to transform food into desire nutritional outcome). If these conditions are not practically fulfilled, the household will be in a state of food insecurity.

Causes of Food Insecurity

Rapid population growth which leads to more food production and the need for ploughing more land leads to deforestation. Civil war, less employment, illiteracy, poor health and sanitation are also contributed to the cause of food insecurity.

Nutrition Emergency Intervention

Nutrition emergency response is the set up which prevent the death of many peoples in the community. The goal is to protect them from livelihood condition; the intervention focuses on reducing excess mortality during the first phase of the emergency situation. The emergency situation may include provisions for food, shelter, control of communicable diseases; follow up curative care and intersectoral collaborative work in the community. The intervention includes food distribution, food program, include supplementation, and blanket supplementary feeding and therapeutic feeding.